No, I’m not talking about the election, or how handgun silencers are being de-regulated under the Hearing Protection Act (what’s next, rape is ok, under the Blue Balls Elimination Initiative?).

My entire JOB, Data Modeling, which ten of us do, along with two other jobs (about 100 people total) is being eliminated at ‘Large Southern Retailer’, where I work. Or will work for the next 19 days, anyway. We’ve been invited to take a severance package (which they have not detailed to us yet, though no one has called it “generous”), or we can apply for one of several other jobs, none of which we are trained in, qualified for, nor remotely interested in. And this is all happening by 30 January.

I’ve been a Data Modeler for 13 years. I’m pretty good at it, I understand it, and its role in the life cycle of big corporate data. Unfortunately, it’s the only thing I know how to do. I don’t speak Java. I don’t agile. And I sure as hell don’t pair-anything. (Keep your damned hands off my keyboard.)

My boss was walked out yesterday morning by HR; no warning, no explanation, and no time for goodbye. And it wasn’t until about 4 hours later that anyone said ANYTHING to us about what was going to happen to us, and STILL, a day later, no one has said anything to us about our boss. Class act, huh?

The premise being that roughly once a week I’ll take stock of what I’m reading, and whether I’m learning anything and why not. No spoilers though, that would be wrong. Fuller (though not necessarily BETTER) reviews can be found in my Goodreads account.

I have quite a range here this week.

City On Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg

learning a lot about fireworks, but I don’t think we said ‘like’ as much as these kids do, I think we said ‘you know’ – “so, I said, you know, how do you, you know, KNOW, you know, whether…”

Cocktail Time by P. G. Wodehouse

learning that I still love Wodehouse.

Chosen Prey by John Sandford

learning that I still love Sandford.

A Death in Chinaby Carl Hiaasen and Bill Montalbano (ebook)

learning that I do NOT like reading ebooks, and I’m blaming my dislike of this book on that.

The Death of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (audiobook)

learning that I like Poirot, and that I’m ashamed to say I waited this long to read any of this series.

I’ve been excited about this because it would be the first time I was in on one of these serial thingies right from the start. I even pre-wrote that cute opening line, figuring I can use it every week. I went to bed last night just SURE I was going to have something awesomely smile-worthy to write about by noon, at the latest.

I went through my whole day just WAITING for that perfect smiley moment.

Waiting for the funny.

Heeeere it comes. HERE comes the smile.

And then….

Worst. Day. Ever.

Ok, Ok, so nobody died or got arrested or got fired or chipped a tooth or broke a nail.

But it was still a crap day.

And THAT is making me smile NOW, now that I’m home and full of dinner, and tucked up into my jammies with a cup of tea, because “best laid plans…” and all.

Let’s see if I can put less pressure on next week and find something to smile at 🙂

Enter your photos, drawings, quotes, poems, stories, anything, as long as it has to do with the color of the day.

I can’t commit to anything for three entire months because of LAZY, but I was just looking at the colors (some of which are very odd indeed – I don’t remember Atomic Tangerine, Neon Carrot, or Inch Worm from MY Crayola days) and saw that today’s color is asparagus!

AND it just so happens that we’re having asparagus for dinner tonight!

And if you showed up at my door on Saturday morning, I’d probably boot you right back out the door again, and tell you to come back tomorrow morning, but not too early.

Then on SUNDAY, I’d tell you that I’m sorry, but I had a ton of laundry and housecleaning to do prior to…the in-laws stopping by to break up their drive back down to Isla Retirementa, Florida from their two-week siege visit to The Brother in New Jersey. Wobbly-legged from arthritis, with weak hearts (and weak brains, but that’s another story), bad eyesight and poor hearing, they still insist on driving from FL to NJ and back every year. And they will NOT be put in a hotel, even at our seriously-incredibly-glad-to-do-it-expense, but would prefer to spend the stopover night here in our cat-hair-allergy-triggering, wooden-staircase-oh-Christ-there-goes-my-back-again upstairs bedroom.

And no, we don’t make them stay in THE upstairs bedroom, we only HAVE upstairs bedrooms. They know this. They’ve always known this. They can barely WALK! Why…someone, for the love of all that is sensible, someone PLEASE tell me WHY they insist on staying here? {deep breaths, in with the calm, out with the vitriol, in with the peace, out with the screaming fantods – it’s over now, you survived} ok. better now.

And along with the in-laws’ arrival’s prep work, there were also the regular weekend chores, compounded by the ‘we only do this the first weekend of each month’ chores, like changing the mattress pads, and the pillow covers (not to be confused with the pillowCASES, which are the ones you see, or the pillowSLIPS which go between the cover and the case.) And on a side note, are we the only people who sleep with three layers between our faces and the ticking? Mr Tater thinks we are.

Once I got all THAT out of my system, I’d tell you about how glad I am that this holiday season is over. Two weeks in a row of never knowing exactly what day it is has me all discombobulated. Back to normal now, and speaking of normal… it seems to be a bit chilly out there this morning. FINALLY, the weather is getting close to what it’s “supposed” to be in January.

I’d tell you that I’ve been reading a lot of bloggers’ resolutions, and decisions, and goals – I’m sticking with my plan of New Month’s Whatevers…for January, it’s get out there and WALK every day and the ONLY thing that is allowed to stop me is seriously inclement weather. Not laziness, not busy-ness, just bucketing down rain, or gale-force winds, or zombie apocalypse-type stuff. Well, and having a lot of post-in-laws clean up and the taking-down-of-even-our-tiny-effort-at-decorating work. That can interfere, too.

I exceeded my 2015 Goodreads Reading Challenge of 100 by an additional 8! Go eyes! This year I’ve set it for 104, a ice even 2 per week, but I’m making a vow, and to myself only, because I think I might break this one) to read at least one non-fiction work per month. Not a big fan of non-fiction, and I couldn’t tell you why. I’m breaking into it easy with Felicia Day’s memoir, You’re Never Weird On The Internet (mostly). It’s a fun read, she tells a great story.

I’d WANT to tell you about how incredibly weird I find most of humanity to be, and as evidence I’d tell you about Cousin Heloise’s breakfast vampire and Cousin Theodora’s chicken-soup-and-cake cancer. But I’ll save those for another whine-fest coffee get-together.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for my blog. Wasn’t that nice of them? I don’t know whether anyone other than ME is interested in MY blog’s stats, but if you are… have a look.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,900 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 48 trips to carry that many people.

And then when they got back, I suppose every one of them would want some sort of refreshment. That’s a lot of pressure, man. How am I going to keep 48 trolley-fulls of blog-readers fat and happy? Damn you stats helper monkeys! I could have lived without that visualization!

*three things that make me smile: an exercise in gratitude – feel free to steal this idea with wild abandon and fill your blog with the happy*

Thanks to NerdInTheBrain for the whole idea! Come up with your own three and then hop on over to NerdInTheBrain and add your post to the linky thing.

My Three Things that made me smile on this New Year’s Eve Thursday are:

My boss! Who told us to take a half-day today – YAY, BOSS!

(It would be inappropriate of me to post a photo of him without his consent, and since he doesn’t know about this blog, it would be tricky to GET his consent, so instead I’ll post a picture of a giant omelette that I ate at work. The work at which he is my boss.)

2. My 2 years of blogging.

It was nice of WordPress to keep track for me, I never would have remembered.

3. Oh that NED! – reminding me that I have books to return to the library.

I am so unhappy with my new theme. No matter how I format while writing, SHAAN decides where the breaks are going to come and how spread out it will be. Grrr… (breathe in, breathe out, Ned, breathe in, breathe out, Mr Tater)

This is the weekend of Try 1000 Themes til I find the right one. Even if I have to <gulp> PAY for it.